Tag Archives: Gratitude

Chapter-a-Day

The After-Meal Blessing

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When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
Deuteronomy 8:10 (NIV)

The first apartment I lived in during college was the upper level of an ancient house. There were roaches. A lot of roaches. Turn on a light at night and they would all scurry. Complaints fell on deaf ears. It was obvious that the landlord had given up trying to get rid of the pests. The deposit and first month’s rent took all the money on hand. The first week there was a loaf of bread and jar of peanut butter to get us through to pay day.

Every morning as Wendy and I gather for coffee, breakfast, and some quiet time we pray together. Quite often, those prayers include an extended time of gratitude. We don’t offer a simple, blanket “thank you.” We name our blessings. A wonderful home that is beyond anything I could have imagined when I was living in that Roach Motel. A pantry that is full. An unlooked for career that has blessed me on multiple levels. Loving family, children, grandchildren, intimate relationships, faithful friendships, and amazing community. Naming them and saying thank you for each and every one is a kind of spiritual chiropractic—small adjustments that realign the soul.

This regular exercise of gratitude brings our hearts into alignment. God has blessed us. I don’t ever want to get seduced into thinking that it’s all about what I’ve done, or what we’ve done. I don’t want to get spiritually lazy and forget the source of every breath, every day, and every blessing.

Many years ago I memorized Deuteronomy 8:10. It resonated deep within me. Here in Iowa, you grow up learning to appreciate the land. Iowa means “beautiful land,” and it is beautiful. It is also abundant with a perpetual harvest of life and blessing. But, there was something else that stirred as I meditated on the verse. Wendy and I love a good meal with good wine, good company, and good conversation that keeps you at the table for hours. There is a satisfaction of soul that I feel sitting at the table and experience the satisfaction of having both stomach and heart satiated. I began quietly quoting Deuteronomy 8:10 to myself as a post meal blessing.

I didn’t know it, but I had stumbled upon what Jewish tradition calls Birkat HaMazon. It means literally “blessing of the food,” but it’s the blessing after the meal, not before. Most prayers are uttered in emptiness and need, this prayer flows out of satisfaction. It’s not a prayer for when I’m empty, but when I’m full. And goodness, is my life full.

The Birkat HaMazon is a blessing like a loaf of bread broken into four pieces.

For Sustenance.
I have eaten because God is generous, not because I’m deserving.

For Land.
Not just food, but place. History. Inheritance. Story. In this Jewish prayer I see a reflection of Jesus. He is the Alpha-point from which everything in creation flows in Genesis. He is the Omega-point to which everything in creation will return in Revelation. Everything I seemingly have and possess, is gift not entitlement. Prosperity is entrusted, not earned outright. To bless the land is my confession: “I didn’t build the ground beneath my feet.”

For Jerusalem.
This is the part of the blessing that aches. It remembers loss even in abundance. Even at a full table, Jewish prayer makes space for longing—for justice unfinished, peace incomplete, restoration still coming. It refuses to give in to the illusion that comfort equals completion. Along my life journey, I’ve learned that holy ache keeps the heart supple.

For God’s Goodness.
The blessing’s final movement gathers everything and says, in essence: “God, you are good. You always have been. You always will be.”

Not because the meal was perfect. Not because life is tidy. But because God’s character is rock steady. Even when we are faithless, God remains faithful. It’s who He is, and He can’t be anything but who He is.

Once again, I find myself in the quiet this morning wishing I could bathe in the text. There is so much wisdom in Moses’ reflection. He remembered the manna. His people didn’t complain the loudest when they were starving. Their complaints hit the highest decibel level when God’s provision of manna became predictable.

Today’s chapter is a reminder of a roach filled apartment and week-long diet of peanut butter toast and peanut butter sandwiches. Looking back, that season wasn’t punishment, it was spiritual formation. In a few moments I will head downstairs for breakfast with Wendy. I will take her hand and we will name our blessings. We will enjoy breakfast. We will solve the problems of the world in about a half-hour. Then we will get up to start our day.

But before I do, I will thank the Lord our God for the good land He has given us.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
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Chapter-a-Day

Our Tent is Full

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“How beautiful are your tents, Jacob,
    your dwelling places, Israel!

“Like valleys they spread out,
    like gardens beside a river,
like aloes planted by the Lord,
    like cedars beside the waters.
Water will flow from their buckets;
    their seed will have abundant water.”
Numbers 24:5-7 (NIV)

Wendy and I are still amidst the slow process of addressing the contents of our lake house that was sold last December. This past weekend Wendy placed a shoebox on the kitchen island that contained all of the photos that we’d collected over 15 years and displayed on the walls there. I spent a little time digging through them. So many good times and memories with our family and dear friends. As Wendy and I paused to pray before breakfast yesterday, I felt a surge of gratitude for God’s goodness and blessing, and I expressed our thanks and praise.

Today’s chapter is a continuation of the story of Balak, King of Moab, and the spiritual guru for hire named Balaam whom he’s hired in hopes of cursing the Hebrew tribes camped in the wilderness and ensuring their defeat. Twice Balaam has gone through his pagan divination rituals only to have God demand from him a blessing for the Hebrews. Now, a third time, Balak demands a curse from the famous seer.

What’s interesting about this third oracle is that Balaam does not go through his normal pagan divination rituals. Instead, he “turned his face toward the wilderness” to look at the Hebrew camp. The Spirit of God comes upon him and he utters a word of prophecy like a true prophet of God and Israel. The Gentile pagan is used by God to bless His people, much like Zoroastrian astrologers from Persia showing up in Bethlehem to bless the infant Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. God is God. Throughout the Great Story God breaks standard operating procedures to use the most unlikely of individuals for His good purposes.

Balaam’s final message of blessing over Israel is fascinating when I meditate on the context. The Hebrew people are wanderers at this point in the story. They have no fortress. They have no palaces. They have no city walls or city gates. They are wayfaring strangers traveling through a wilderness of woe. But Balaam sees beauty in their tents, their tribes, and their families. The Hebrew people are a “garden” of goodness filled with a flowing abundance of love, joy, and shalom. Balaam sees the very thing God intended for His people all along and declared back at Mount Sinai before they set out. These people are different. God is with them. They are blessed.

As I meditate on these things in the quiet this morning, my mind wanders back to the photographs from fifteen years of family and friends at the lake. Good food, good drink, quiet conversations over coffee in the morning, laughter and the sharing of life over cigars and Scotch on the dock as the sun sets. So much love, joy, and shalom. Our tent was full of abundance of the things that matter most in life.

Our tent is still full of that goodness. Despite the fact that our season of having the lake house is over, our tent here in Pella is just as abundant with goodness. Just this past week Taylor and four of her girlfriends (and one baby girl), came to our house for a girls retreat. Wendy and I were so blessed to host them, to overhear their laughter and their tears as they made time to share life. In an hour or so Wendy and I will gather in the kitchen for our morning ritual of coffee, smoothies, the headlines, and the sharing of our lives together.

Shalom.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
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Chapter-a-Day

Dedication

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Dedication (CaD Lev 27) – Wayfarer

“‘A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord.’”
Leviticus 27:30 (NIV)

Dedication is one of those words that I know its meaning but when you ask me to simply and clearly define it, it sort of escapes me. So, I looked it up this morning. It’s actually a Swiss army knife of a word. The American Heritage Dictionary actually had eight different definitions. For our purposes today, I’d like to focus on just two of them:

  1. Selfless devotion.
  2. The act of setting apart or consecrating to a divine Being, or to a sacred use, often with religious solemnities; solemn appropriation.

Today’s chapter is the final chapter of God’s instruction manual for the newly appointed Hebrew priests and the Hebrew people back in about 1500 B.C. God finishes the manual with a chapter about dedications and tithes. God has already talked about the offerings, sacrifices, and festivals that He wanted His people to weave into the fabric of their lives. He ends with instructions around acts of dedication that go above and beyond what has already been prescribed.

God tells His people that they have a choice to dedicate servants, houses, and land to God. What’s more, God tells them to consider a tithe (10 percent) of everything they have and everything their land produces belongs to Him. God has already told them that everything that they have been and will be blessed with are God’s divine and generous gift (Lev 26:3-5). In reality, all of creation, including all we are, have, and are blessed to acquire are God’s. God asks His people to gratefully embrace this truth and show it by consciously and willfully setting aside ten percent of everything as a tangible “thank you” back to God.

Why?

As I meditated on this question in the quiet this morning, my mind and heart found themselves wandering back to this pesky human problem of sin that began in the Garden of Eden. God gave everything in the Garden to them for their consumption, save one thing. They were given 99.9% of everything the Garden had to offer, but they couldn’t abide surrendering their appetite and desire to have it all.

I appears to me that God is, in effect, asking His people to turn their hearts back to Him in a way that reverses the Eden Problem. He has generously shown up, miraculously delivered them from slavery, and now promises to abide with them and bless them with life, provision, and land. As with Eden, He’s blessing them with everything. What He asks is that they recognize this and reserve just ten percent to offer back as an on-going “Thank you” card.

First, this requires a spirit of “selfless devotion.” It’s so easy to think that my paycheck is mine. It’s my job. It was my hard work that earned it. It’s my money. But, wait a second…

Who blessed me to be born in the wealthiest and most materially blessed nation in the history of the entire world?

Who blessed me to live in a place with a great educational system that taught me everything I know?

Who saw to it I was born into a family who provided for me, cared for me, and taught me everything I needed to succeed in life?

How blessed have I been to enjoy almost sixty-years of health, opportunity, and affluence?

Did I do one thing to make any of these things happen? Did I do anything to deserve the amazing lot in life that I’ve been afforded?

No.

And that’s the point that God is asking me to tangibly and metaphorically remember every day, every month, and every year of my life. Take ten percent and “set it apart” in a willful act that says:

“Everything I have is from you anyway, God. I wouldn’t have any of it if it wasn’t for you. And, it’s all yours anyway. Someday, any day now really, I’m going to die and my body will return to dust and ashes just like you said. Not a single thing I think I own or consider to be mine is going to mean anything at that point. Adam and Eve weren’t content with 99.9% of the Garden. They had to have that last one-tenth of a percent. I don’t want to live like that. I don’t want to be like that. Here’s ten percent, God. I dedicate it to you. I gratefully give it back to you.”

In the quiet this morning I am reminded of the ten lepers whom Jesus healed. One came back to say, “Thank you.” One of ten was grateful. Ten percent made a willful choice to turn around, trek back to Jesus, and offer his thanks. Jesus response?

“Where are the other nine?”

Wendy and I are consciously willful about being generous with the money and things with which we’ve been blessed. We talk about it. We practice it. We weave it into the fabric of our everyday lives. I don’t want to be like Adam and Eve, discontent with God’s gracious and generous blessing and deluded into thinking that anything (let alone everything) I think I own is really mine. I want to be a ten-percent person like the leper who came back to say “thanks.”

The further I get in my spiritual journey, the more I come to understand that the extent of my generosity is a leading indicator of the depth of both my spiritual understanding of the economics of God’s Kingdom, and my gratitude for God’s insane generosity towards me.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

My Choice

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My Choice (CaD Lev 1) – Wayfarer

“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When anyone among you brings an offering to the Lord, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock.”
Leviticus 1:2 (NIV)

Imagine an entire nation of people wandering in the desert. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children; Perhaps millions with their flocks and herds. For four hundred years these people had been slaves in Egypt. They were told where to live, what to do each day, and they were given little or no choices in life. Their ancestor, Abraham, had made a covenant with God hundreds of years before, but they knew little about the God of Abraham. It had only been stories passed down through the generations.

Then, the God of Abraham showed up. He revealed Himself to Moses and miraculously delivered them out of their slavery in Egypt. Now they find themselves living in the wilderness. Everything has changed. This nation of people have an opportunity to begin a whole new way of living life together in community with their God, and with one another. It is, perhaps, the greatest social experiment in human history. It still resonates in our daily lives if we will but recognize it.

Today our chapter-a-day journey wades into perhaps the most ignored and misunderstood book in the entire Great Story. The book of Leviticus was a set of instructions for the newly appointed priests among this fledgling nation of newly freed slaves, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There were twelve tribes of them, and God through Moses appointed one tribe, the tribe of Levi, to handle priestly duties. Within the tribe of Levi, the descendants of Aaron (Moses right-hand man) would be the official priests who handled sacrifices. Keep in mind, just a month or so ago these Levite dudes were just slaves like everyone else doing what they were told to do in Pharaoh’s construction projects. Now they are priests of the God of Moses with no earthly idea what that means or what they are supposed to be doing. Leviticus is their guidebook.

The book opens by describing the five major types of offerings (burnt, grain, fellowship, sin, and guilt) that the people will bring to God, and how the priests are to handle them. Today’s opening chapter deals with burnt offerings. There were two things I noticed immediately as I read today’s chapter.

First, it says “when” people bring a burnt “offering” followed by “if” that offering is one of three potential types (a bull, a sheep, or a bird). This is not compulsory. The burnt offering is first and foremost a choice that is made by the person or family bringing it. The Hebrew word for “offering” means literally to “bring.” It is a choice. The entire act is one of willful devotion to God.

Next, there are three potential burnt offerings representing different economic realities. A bull could only be offered by a family with herds, which were objects of great wealth in their socio-economic system. A sheep or a goat were more common and represent a more “middle class” reality among the people. Birds were relatively cheap and plentiful for those who were on the poorer end of the economic spectrum of that day. In other words, God is allowing for people across the entire socio-economic spectrum to show their devotion at whatever level they can afford. Everyone is welcome.

As I meditated on these things in the quiet this morning, I was struck by the fact that God is amazingly consistent in His message and method. He initiated everything by appearing to Moses and freeing the Hebrew tribes from slavery. Now He is asking for them to make a free and willful choice to express their devotion and gratitude by coming to God with an offering, whatever they can personally afford.

“I chose you. I loved you. I saved you. Now, I want you to choose me and here is how you can do that.”

It is the same paradigm that God would display through Jesus a few thousand years later.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
John 3:16-17 (NIV)

Or, as John would put it in one of his letters:

“We love because He first loved us.”
1 John 4:18

As I head out into a new and very busy work week, I’m reminded this morning that it is the same for me as it was for the former Hebrew slaves trying to figure out how now they should live. God has lovingly done everything for me. He has loved me, saved me, delivered me from my slavery to sin, guided me, provided for me, and blessed me. Now, I have the opportunity to choose to, in return, offer my love, gratitude, and devotion by living my life and relating to others with His love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.

It’s my choice.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

“Just Believe”

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Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
Mark 5:36 (NIV)

In our daily prayer together, Wendy and I try to regularly be grateful and recount all of the ways God has blessed us. I don’t do it because “giving thanks” is a command. I do it because when I stop for a moment to consider how blessed we really are, I am both grateful and humbled. And, I need a daily dose of gratitude and humility as much, if not more, than the small bowl of vitamins and supplements Wendy puts in front of me each morning.

As I get close the back-end of my sixth decade on this earthly journey, I have a lot of life and life experiences upon which to reflect. There are numerous waypoints on life’s road where my family and/or I have faced failures, tragedies, challenges, loss, struggles, and needs. In fact, I’m quite sure I have quite enough stories to take up a good part of your day and bore you to tears. After all, Jesus Himself told His followers, “In this world you will have troubles.” We all have them, don’t we?

In today’s chapter, Jesus confronts a trio of individuals in their very different but very real troubles. The first is a demon-possessed man, the second is a woman with a medical condition in which she had been bleeding for twelve-years which made her ritually unclean perpetually and a social outcast. Then there is a leader of the local synagogue who had a young daughter near death. Struggle and suffering come in many forms in this life, don’t they?

As Jesus is walking with the anxious father, word arrives from his household that his daughter had passed away. It was too late. Jesus happened to still be speaking with the woman healed from her bleeding. He was telling her that her faith had been the agent of her healing as He overhears the bad news the father just received. Jesus turns to the grieving father and immediately says, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

What a learning moment. The woman’s faith had precipitated her miraculous healing. The father had seen it. He was standing right there. Now Jesus calls on him to have the same kind of faith that the woman had. Not just the faith for healing from a medical condition, but faith to bring his daughter back from death.

One of the things that I’ve discovered along my life journey is that faith grows with every waypoint on life’s road in which one is required to trust and God is faithful in providing, healing, and delivering. By regularly recounting those waypoints and expressing gratitude for God’s faithfulness I am strengthening my faith for the unknown troubles, tragedies, and challenges that may be awaiting me just ahead. With them continually fresh in my memory it’s much more likely that I will react to the next challenge by hearing Jesus words, “Don’t be afraid; just believe” in my heart with faith and reacting with faith rather than fear.

By the way, Angel Studios’ production The Chosen did a masterful job of portraying the events in today’s chapter of the woman’s healing and the little girl’s rising. If you have a few minutes, it’s worth a watch. (There’s a link to it in the description of today’s podcast episode).

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“Luxury Beliefs”

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“Luxury Beliefs” (CaD Ezk 28) – Wayfarer

By your great skill in trading
    you have increased your wealth,
and because of your wealth
    your heart has grown proud.
Ezekiel 28:5 (NIV)

Spiritual maturity is pronounced in pain, it is arrested in affluence.

Over the past year, Wendy and I have been reading what has been an emerging theme in the news outlets we read. The theme is Luxury Beliefs and it came from the observations of a writer named Rob Henderson. We often think of the luxury wealth and affluence affords simply in terms of the tangible goods that come with luxury. Henderson argues that in the 21st century there has been a shift. The wealthy and affluent see their beliefs as much a status symbol as their luxury handbag, timepiece, car, or yacht. His essay is worth a read.

Of course, the idea of wealth affecting matters of belief was a theme of Jesus. He said that it was easier for a camel to be thread through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Today’s chapter contains two more prophetic messages against the ancient King of Tyre. As discussed in the previous two chapter-a-day posts, Tyre was a tremendously wealthy port city, and Zeke points out in both of the messages that the King of Tyre’s wealth and affluence has affected his beliefs. It has given him as sense of hubris and pride. In his Luxury Beliefs he considers himself a god. He is wiser and more understanding than all the poor, ignorant minions under his authority. God’s message to the wealthy ruler is that what he doesn’t see is that his “wisdom” and Luxury Beliefs have been corrupted by his affluence and pride.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself in a familiar and uncomfortable place. In relative terms I am wealthy. I am affluent. I live in the richest and most affluent of nations. One of the things I’ve observed on this earthly journey is that I will always be able to point to people I know and people I know of who have tremendously more wealth than me. The insidious effect of this is that I can always consider myself humbly poor compared to the guy I ran into at the restaurant last night who lives in the biggest mansion in town. And that is just one of his many residences.

The problem, of course, is that I’m looking in the wrong direction. Jesus taught me this. He teaches all His disciples this. We’re always looking up the cultural and economic ladder at those more rich, powerful, wealthy, famous, and affluent than we are. We are obsessed as a culture with fame and fortune. But our ways are not God’s ways.

Jesus told me to turn around and look down the economic ladder. Look at the little old widow who put her last two pennies in the collection plate. Look at the lame beggar. Look at the leper who everyone shames and avoids. When I look down the economic ladder, I begin to realize just how rich I really am. I realize that I can afford to be far more generous than I have been. It begins to sow in my soul seeds of contentment rather than envy, gratitude rather than greed. As those seeds take root, they change my perspective, my thoughts, my actions, and my beliefs. Then, I might just be making some progress toward spiritual maturity.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

God’s Will: Three Lessons

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God's Will: Three Lessons (CaD 1 Thes 5) – Wayfarer

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)

When I was a young man, my friends and I spent a lot of time wondering about God’s will for our lives. There are so many big decisions that happen in your late teens and twenties. Where do I go to college? What do I major in? What do I pursue as a career? Will I marry, and if so, who?

Looking back at those years, there were some lessons I learned about God’s will and my will.

Life is like a jet ski. God can’t direct me if I’m not moving. Anyone who has been on a jet ski knows that you can sit there with the motor idling and move the handlebars all you want but it won’t respond. It’s only when you are moving forward (or backward) that it can be directed where you want it to go. It took God about seven years to steer me to the career to which I know that I was led, but I got there. I remember hearing a speaker say, “There’s a bunch of doors in front of you. Don’t sit there forever trying to discern the one door God has for you. Pick one! If that’s not the right door, God will close it.” It was sage advice.

I will make poor choices with good intentions. God will use that, too. I thought I had a good handle on what God wanted me to do vocationally, but I was wrong. That’s cool, though. In those seven years of leading me where I was supposed to be, I learned a lifetime of valuable lessons. I honed skills that would be invaluable to me. I met individuals who would become life-long companions on the journey. It’s easy to think of God’s will in binary terms. You’re either in it, or you’re not. I see it differently now. Sometimes the journey from where I am to where God wants me to be is His will, too. When I live daily life asking, seeking, and knocking, I experience ongoing receiving, finding, and having opportunities open for me. It’s easy to think of God’s will as a destination, but it’s also the journey.

Focus on those things that are always God’s will. And that’s what Paul reminds his friends in Thessalonica in today’s chapter:

Rejoice always.
Pray continually.
Give thanks in all circumstances.

Last month, when our basement flooded for the second time in a matter of weeks, Wendy and I prayed. We praised God and thanked Him. How blessed we are despite the momentary problems. We learned that we had a carpet pad that protects against spills, but it also traps water that gets underneath it. It’s impossible to suck it up through the spill-proof liner. We thought our basement was dry after the first flood, but the pad was still wet and eventually, we would have had a huge mold issue. If the second flood hadn’t happened, we never would have known that.

Some lessons in life are hard. I don’t always know where God is leading us. Things happen that don’t make sense to me. I can get overwhelmed, anxious, and angry, or I can simply keep doing what I know to be God’s will: perpetually rejoice, pray, and be grateful. When I do that, I find myself trusting God more and worrying about my circumstances less.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Prayer of Jabez

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Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.
1 Chronicles 4:9-10 (NIV)

Wendy and I are at the lake this week in preparation for our annual Memorial Day weekend with friends and the kick-off to summer. I just started one of the books on my summer reading list. The Way of a Pilgrim is a mystic work written anonymously in the nineteenth century. It comes out of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It is the story of an unnamed pilgrim who embarks on a journey to discover how one prays constantly.

Along my own spiritual journey, I’ve found the spiritual discipline of prayer takes many forms. I’ve touched on this many times over the years. In fact, a post I wrote about Popcorn Prayers back in 2019 continues to get a lot of regular reads, which I find kind of fascinating.

Most of the time, my prayers take the form of conversations with God. At the same time, I have found that there are a number of traditional prayers that have been handed down through history which I offer repeatedly; Prayers like the Lord’s Prayer, the Jesus Prayer, the Prayer of St. Francis, and the Prayer of St. Patrick.

Around the turn of the 21st century, the prayer of Jabez from today’s chapter became the subject of a popular book. Like most people, I’d never really notice it before because it’s buried in the fourth of the Chronicler’s nine chapters of genealogy. I probably had skipped or skimmed my way right over it for years. The book, however, became a best seller and the prayer has also made it into regular rotation of my repeated prayers over the years.

What’s fascinating about the prayer of Jabez, and the book about the prayer which has sold over 10 million copies, is that it can easily become a spiritualized version of a good luck charm. Even the book and its publishers push the idea that it’s a “breakthrough to blessing.” Indeed, Jabez’s prayer fits hand-in-glove with the message of name-it-and-claim-it televangelists and those hawking a prosperity gospel. I know those who say they pray it daily and pray it often so God will shower them with blessing.

As I’ve repeated and internalized the prayer of Jabez over the years, I’ve found it not to be about receiving material blessings, but about being a blessing. I’m already blessed. I’m blessed indeed. I’m blessed abundantly. If anything, I don’t spend enough time in contented gratitude for all of the blessings I take for granted every day. Jabez asks for “expanded borders” for God’s blessings. For me, this is a prayer for increased and proliferated opportunities to channel the blessings God has graciously given me.

In the quiet this morning, I am grateful for my return to the prayer of Jabez amidst the genealogical slog on this chapter-a-day journey. It’s a good reminder as I gaze out over the lake of the ways God has blessed me beyond what I could have even imagined when I was a young man. I’m equally reminded that the blessings I have been given are not to be hoarded but to be shared, and so my heart echoes the request of Jabez for expanded borders to extend the blessings I have never deserved but have been generously given to share.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Difference

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The Difference (CaD Gal 3) – Wayfarer

I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?
Galatians 3:2 (NIV)

I was a dormitory Resident Assistant (RA) through most of my college years. Being an RA came with the responsibility of checking on residents, making sure everyone was out for fire drills or fire alarms, doing room inspections, and making sure everyone was in by curfew. For these few responsibilities, I got my own room.

During my first year as an RA, I remember some stark differences in how other members of the team handled the rules. There was this one guy, in particular, who was rabid in enforcing the “letter of the law.” If a person was one second past curfew they were in trouble. He demanded that rooms be immaculate to pass inspection. He seemed to enjoy finding ways to catch rule breakers and punish them. As you can imagine, he quickly gained the reputation of being the worst RA in the dorm. No one wanted to live on his floor.

I have always generally been a rule follower, but I was a “spirit of the law” kind of guy as an RA. I figured that room inspections were intended to make sure nothing nasty was growing and no health hazards were being incubated. Likewise, when a guy came sprinting into the dorm a few minutes past curfew, I figured he was at least conscious enough of the rule to actually run back to the dorm. I let it slide.

In today’s chapter, Paul addresses the crux of a conflict that plagued the early years of the Jesus Movement. It’s about the rules God gave Moses and the Hebrew people after delivering them from Egypt. Known simply as “the Law,” there were those within the Jesus Movement who insisted that a person could not be a follower of Jesus without first being obedient to all the rules of the Law. God had already made clear to Peter, to Paul, and to the rest of the Apostles that non-Jewish Gentiles did not have to adhere to the Law to believe in Jesus and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, rabid rule-keepers like my RA friend had visited the local gatherings of Jesus’ followers in Galatia and started insisting otherwise.

Paul does not mince words. He calls his Galatian friends fools for being influenced by the rule-keeping tyrants. Salvation, Paul points out, is about simply believing. This isn’t a new concept. Paul goes all the way back to the “father” of the Jewish people, Abraham. Abraham “believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Rule-keeping doesn’t produce righteousness. In fact, rule-keeping only results in proving that I’m imperfect. When religion becomes about rule-keeping it always results in powerful hypocrites tyrannizing weak followers in keeping up appearances of rule-keeping perfection.

Father Abraham, Paul argues, was the prototype that superseded the law. Abraham simply believed God and did what God told him. Abe was credited with righteousness, not by keeping rules but by believing and responding out of that belief. Because Jesus’ died for sin and rose from the dead, the tyranny of rule-keeping and the Law is over. The Abraham paradigm has been firmly established once and for all. As Paul would write to the believers in Rome: “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

In the quiet this morning, I find myself reflecting on some of the more fundamentalist experiences I’ve had along my spiritual journey. The tyranny of rule-keeping continues to be a pillar of fundamentalist groups and cults. You can find several documentaries about such groups streaming on your favorite platform. A form of the core issue Paul is addressing in today’s chapter is still with us. The “letter of the law” paradigm seems so simple, It’s so black-and-white, and it provides an easy-to-understand framework of behavior. And, it is typically accompanied by rabid letter-of-the-law tyrants to police the behaviors and punish the rule-breakers.

The “spirit of the law” paradigm of Abraham and Jesus gets rather messy at times. It requires me to believe. Not just a mental acknowledgment, but believing in such a way that I am motivated to think, speak, and act out of that belief. I am compelled to do so by the love of Jesus, who sacrificed Himself for my sin. It’s not about guilt but about gratitude. It’s not rule-keeping but responding to Jesus’ kindness. Righteousness isn’t earned, it’s credited.

That makes all the difference.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Jesus & Customer Research

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Jesus & Customer Research (CaD Lk 17) – Wayfarer

“So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
Luke 17:10 (NIV)

In my daily vocation, I have spent my career in the research and assessment of customer service and satisfaction. It’s been a fascinating journey in many ways. In particular, I love that there are so many spiritual parallels.

For example, our research team often tests different dimensions of customer service to discover their impact on customers’ overall satisfaction. Some dimensions of service are revealed to be penalty variables while other dimensions of service are reward variables.

A penalty variable is something that won’t increase customer satisfaction if it’s demonstrated, but it will definitely diminish customer satisfaction if it’s not. For example, if a customer has a problem and calls Customer Service, the simple act of resolving the problem is typically a penalty variable. It’s very much like when our daughters were young and had household chores they were expected to do, such as cleaning their rooms. If I saw that the room was clean, I didn’t seek them out to embrace them, celebrate the completed task, and shower them with praise. Why? Because it’s a routine household task I simply expected to be accomplished. If, however, they didn’t clean their room I definitely sought them out to complain and threaten them with penalties or punishment if they didn’t meet the expectation.

A reward variable, on the other hand, is a dimension of service that increases satisfaction the more often and more consistently it is demonstrated. Soft skills such as empathy, courtesy, and friendliness are typically reward variables. Let’s go back to the example of our daughters doing their chores. As our daughter is cleaning her room and doing her chores, she steps into my home office to empty the trash. She sees my phone on the desk and stops to write “I Love Dad” on a sticky note and takes a selfie with it for me to find when I open my phone later that day. It’s unexpected. It’s considerate. It makes my day and fills my love tank and she is rewarded with my appreciation for her.

In today’s chapter, both penalty variables and reward variables are pointed out by Jesus.

The chapter begins with Jesus teaching His followers. He speaks of the attitude He expects His followers to have as they dutifully obey His teaching. Jesus uses the metaphor of a household employee who prepares his employer’s meal and waits until after the employer has eaten and things are picked up to take his own dinner break. In short, Jesus expects me to approach my acts of service as penalty variables. I don’t do them for praise or reward. I do them out of gratitude and a servant’s heart.

The chapter continues with Jesus telling ten lepers to go to show themselves to the priests. Because skin diseases were a cause for quarantine, a person healed of the disease had to show themselves to the priest to be declared “clean” so they could return to society. As the lepers are making their way to the priests, they realize that they have all been healed of their disease. Only one of the ten turned and returned to Jesus to thank Him. Jesus was impressed with the gratitude that he alone showed.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded of another of Jesus’ core teachings: “Whoever wants to be first must be last and the servant of all.” Along the journey, I’ve learned that this requirement is not only of my deeds but most importantly in the attitude of my heart.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.